


Gone and Fled

by Lilliburlero



Category: Richard II - Shakespeare
Genre: Ficlet, Gen, Improbable History
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-25
Updated: 2014-03-25
Packaged: 2018-01-17 01:05:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1368265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lilliburlero/pseuds/Lilliburlero
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Richard II, 2.iv, from the Welsh Captain's point of view.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gone and Fled

**Author's Note:**

> For strangeparticles, to the prompt, "Richard II, water."

Owain looks over the water to Ireland. It’s been ten days and they came supplied for two nights. They’ve been on long watches and short rations for over a week. Men start to get jumpy, then delirious, under those conditions: they look in the sky for portents and see a bloody moon. Owain found that pretty unsettling himself, and he is an educated, pragmatic man―among other things, a lawyer, trained in the London Inns. What must it seem to a boy who heard his first words of Saesneg a fortnight ago? One of them remembers that the laurel in his master’s kitchen-garden was blasted, wasted, when he marched away, and takes it for a prophecy. The fellows among them who can read faces and unconscious gestures turn wizard, terrorise their mates with foretellings. The rich men with their little companies of archers grow haughty and exasperated: _this is a bloody nonsense, who’s in charge here anyway?_ They threaten to withdraw. Owain says, _bugger off, then_ , expecting them to have some honour and some balls. They bugger off. He’s left with the ruffians, the ones who will dance and leap atop corpses. This is not an army; this is a mob. He bows.

‘My lord of Salisbury.’

Owain looks over to Ireland once more. Not all the all the water in the rough rude sea can wash the sin from his soul. He’ll spend the rest of his life trying to atone for what he’s about to do.

**Author's Note:**

> The suggestion that the Welsh Captain in _Richard II_ is Owain Glyn Dwr is of course, simply a bit of Fantasy History Fun.


End file.
